While performing different activities during more or less bad light conditions, it may be important for a person performing the activities to be visible. A person can obtain a lower degree of visibility by different types of reflective tapes, so as to be visible during poor light conditions. The question of visibility does not only apply to different types of spare time activities, such as bicycling and horse riding, but also to activities related to employment, such as firemen and policemen, who have to be provided with adequate reflector means when working professionally under conditions of low levels of lighting. In this connection a “reflector means” refers to any means in which light is reflected in directions close to the direction from which it came.
In traffic environment, it is especially important to protect the head, and this applies to children as well as grown-ups. However, conventional helmets are not easily visible, for example, by motorists at night, and the user may risk injury from a traffic accident during such occasions even if a helmet is used. In order to alert a motorist under these conditions, several types of reflective warning signs, which are visible at night, are now commercially available.
However, ordinary flat reflector means may have a limited protective effect by only reflecting light from one direction. Different kinds of adhesive reflective tapes exist which can be fastened on clothes or helmets. However, a self-adhesive material, such as a sticker, cannot conveniently be applied to a curved surface due to the formation of wrinkles. It can neither be applied to a material in the form of a sheet, which subsequently is fixed onto a curved surface by means of thermoforming, since the material will then form cracks. Due to the above-mentioned problems, reflective materials according to the state of the art rapidly loose their reflecting properties when applied to irregular or curved surfaces.